


i'm alright with a slow burn

by goingmywaydoll



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - The Great British Bake Off Fusion, Baking, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, The Great Canadian Baking Show, i wrote tags on a post of dan levy hosting gcbs on tumblr then wrote fifteen thousand words of this, just fifteen thousand words of patrick flirting with david through baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 12:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18699301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingmywaydoll/pseuds/goingmywaydoll
Summary: "You totally favor Patrick.”“I do not.”“Oh my god, David, yes, you do! You think I didn’t notice how you always take the leftovers of his bakes instead of anyone else’s?”“He’s a good baker!” David hates that his voice hitches.“‘He’s a good baker’?” Alexis repeats. “You can just say that you’re friends, the world won’t explode if you make a friend other than Stevie.”





	i'm alright with a slow burn

**Author's Note:**

> em stop titling your fics after kacey musgraves songs challenge.
> 
> god this is a monster. i literally wrote three tags on a post on tumblr then somehow wrote all of this. i have to thank [wild-aloof-rebel](wild-aloof-rebel.tumblr.com), [blake-wyatt](blake-wyatt.tumblr.com) and also everyone else that sent me ideas on tumblr literally this au wouldnt have been written if you guys werent so kind and encouraging and helpful!
> 
> almost all of the recipes mentioned here are taken from the pbs website because they have everything organized into neat categories of technical recipes and contestant recipes which was a godsend because i can bake pies and bread and that's about it and i am not someone who can make up recipes on their own. so check that out [here](http://www.pbs.org/food/tag/greatbritishbakingshow-contestant-recipes/)! 
> 
> all you need to know for this au: david and alexis are the hosts, moira and johnny are the judges, patrick and some other characters make appearances as contestants. you could probably read this without a whole lot of knowledge of the great british bake off or great canadian baking show, but i would recommend watching a bit of either show just to get a little feel for it. plus, gcbs is hosting by dan levy so why would you not want to watch that? [check out the premise of the show here.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_British_Bake_Off)
> 
> there may or may not be a sequel in the works...

Stevie tells him his job isn’t really a job because he spends his day eating baked goods with his sister and his parents, but sometimes, when he has to wake up for a six-thirty call time when the bakers don’t even arrive until eight, he feels like Stevie might be full of shit.

Alexis is still in hair and makeup and he’s bored, sitting on his tall folding chair outside the tent as the camera crew shoots b-roll inside.  He’s scrolling through his phone and trying not to think about the fact that he’s going to be on camera in a few hours and also how maybe taking this job wasn’t his best idea when he finds it so exhausting to interact with twelve strangers on camera.

One of the camera guys is walking towards him and the only reason David looks up and keeps his head up is because he doesn't recognize him.

He’s a little more dressed up than the average cameraman, wearing a blue button-down tucked into jeans. “Are they still shooting b-roll in there?” he asks, hands shoved in his pockets as he approaches David.

“Yeah,” he says and slots his phone into his pocket, thinking about his strict rule not to sleep with contestants and how that does not extend to camera guys who come and go, and this cameraman is cute, with brown eyes and a button nose. “I’m David.”

He offers his hand and the camera guy takes it, grasping it firmly. His hands are soft, softer than he expected. “Patrick.”

“Are you new?” asks David, tilting his head to the side.

“Uh, yeah, one of the new ones.” Patrick ducks his head.

“Well, welcome?” 

Patrick smiles at him with that cute little mouth. “Thanks, that means a lot.”

“It’s nothing.” David waves a hand. “It’s kind of my job? As a host.”

“Now I feel _really_ special,” Patrick says, and David flushes red.

“That’s not what I meant.” The words tumble from his mouth, instinct more than anything.

Patrick nods and even the way he nods looks sarcastic. “Oh, of course not.”

“Anyway,” David says because several long seconds of silence are stretching between them and he has to figure out a way out of this conversation. He’s pretty sure Patrick hates him or thinks he’s ridiculous or some combination of the two. “They’re shooting b-roll. In there. So if you…”

“Yeah, you said.”

Patrick looks amused and David feels suddenly itchy under his skin. He seems one of those people that meet you and immediately teases you and David doesn’t like those people, he doesn’t like that they always seem to put their finger on insecurities and _push_. But it also doesn’t seem like Patrick is doing that. Patrick, with his hands in his pockets and his lips curled in an almost imperceptible grin, seems genuinely amused by David. David shifts in his chair.

“See you in there?” Patrick says and David realizes he hasn’t said anything for several long seconds.

“Mmh, uh, yeah, see you in there,” he says and pulls out his phone so he doesn’t have to watch Patrick go, which means he misses the way that Patrick lets his grin widen just a bit, ducking his head to hide it as he walks away.

He doesn’t see Patrick again until the bakers are guided into the tent and Patrick is among them. He watches as he puts his apron over his head, his name splayed across the chest, and, feeling a little like he’s going to be sick, realizes Patrick isn’t a cameraman. His hopes that he could limit interaction with him are promptly slashed as Patrick’s eyes take in the tent and land on him, a smirk playing at his lips. David becomes very interested in the hem of his sweater. He clings to the solace that Patrick won’t be half as confident on camera even if he has to run over his rule again.

_Don’t sleep with the contestants, especially straight ones who wear mid-range denim and have cute button noses._

His mother clasps her hands together, looking out at the twelve bakers in front of them, and he flinches at the sound, wishing he felt less jumpy on the first day of filming. “Welcome, my plucky little bakers!”

“For your first ever signature challenge—eep!” Alexis lets out an excited noise halfway through her sentence, “You’ll be making custard tarts!”

“You have two and a half hours, which _really_ doesn’t feel like enough time, but I’m not in charge here so...” David shrugs, ignoring the look his dad sends him and smirking a little at the laugh it draws from the bakers.

“On your marks! Get set…”

“Bake!”

His mother and father are guided to Twyla’s counter first, except Moira calls her Taylor twice and poor Twyla is too shy to correct her. His father has to mutter the next baker’s name, Jocelyn, in her ear, but she still waves goodbye at the end of the interview and calls her Jenny. David can’t remember the last time his mother got a baker’s name right and he wonders if she does it on purpose.

“Hello, P…”

“Patrick,” he finishes for his mother, mouthing an apology to Patrick like he’s done with every baker before him. Patrick swallows a chuckle and tells them about his rhubarb custard tart, which makes David’s stomach growl.

“An oat crumble crust is an interesting choice,” his father says.

“I find that the crunch contrasts nicely with the softness of the custard,” Patrick says and Johnny nods but doesn’t let anything on.

“Well, we shall see, won’t we?” his mother says. “Bonne chance, Phillip!”

“Patrick, it’s Patrick,” Patrick says, but at least he’s trying not to laugh, taking it all in stride.

His mother begins to walk away, muttering to Johnny under her breath, “Yes, I said that, didn’t I?”

 

* * *

 

David used to like bread week. He likes the smell of the yeast, pulling off bites from the end results, and taking home loaves from the people who have enough practice bakes in their own homes.

Bread week means the contestants are assigned to make a perfect sourdough, which feels a little like cheating because they all have to bring in their own sourdough starters but his dad loves sourdough and so does he, so he doesn’t say anything, except for the few comments he throws at the camera.

Bread week means sourdough which needs to be kneaded which means all the contestants are rolling up their sleeves and sinking their hands into sticky dough. Except that David isn’t watching all the contestants; he’s just watching one.

Twyla is talking about how she got the recipe from her mother’s ex-boyfriend’s step-mother and David usually tunes out half of what Twyla says anyway, so he lets his gaze drift over her shoulder to where Patrick is carefully rolling up his sleeves, focused intently. Patrick has opted for a pale blue button-down today, and the sleeves are rolled neatly up to his elbows. David definitely doesn’t look at his arms, not at the way Patrick sinks his hands into the dough, muscles tensing as he presses it into the table, except that he definitely does. This is why he hates bread week now.

He refocuses back to Twyla, who’s talking about how much salt she puts in her dough and nods along, stubbornly determined to not look at Patrick again for the rest of the day, which he finds to be impossible.

Alexis is talking to Ted across the room and doing that thing where she laughs with the contestants to make them feel warm and fuzzy and maybe they have a chance with her, except David can recognize her real laugh and her real smile and it’s painted all over her face.

She calls him over so she can tell him about Ted’s bake but that sounds like a nightmare, so he says something vaguely about someone needing help, pointing his thumb over his shoulder in a random direction.

Alexis’s lips curl into a smirk as she follows his thumb and he turns away from her, finding himself face to face with Patrick.

Patrick lets out a breathy laugh. “Hey,” he says and David smiles weakly at him as Patrick sinks his hands into the dough again and pushes it across the counter before pulling it back, his muscles constricting with the effort. “Any tips to get your dad to like my bread?”

“You’ve already started baking so any advice I do give is completely unnecessary and would only stress you out.” He’s not looking at the way Patrick presses the heel of his hand into the dough, except that he is. “Plus, that would be cheating?”

“Alexis just told Ted not to add rosemary to his loaf because your mom hates it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not my sister, thank god.”

Patrick ducks his head and looks back to his dough. David can swear he’s hiding a smile, so he digs his nails into his palms, twists his mouth to the side, and tries not to smile himself. And then Patrick wipes his hand across his forehead, leaving a streak of flour behind before continuing to knead, his forearms tensing with each movement, and it almost hurts, trying not to smile at him, so he repeats his rule in his head twice more.

He finds himself unusually grateful when Alexis drags him away so they can tell the bakers how much time they have left.

At the end of the day, the bakers are packing their leftovers into tupperware and Alexis is asking Jocelyn if she can take her rolls home, which leaves David lingering at Patrick’s station, pulling off pieces of his showstopper happily.

“You know you can just take the whole thing home.” Patrick is chuckling and David swallows hard, cheeks flushing red.

“But then you wouldn’t get any,” he says, half-hearted.

“David, I have like five practice ones sitting in my pantry right now.”

“Wouldn’t I love to be your roommate,” he says before he can stop himself. Patrick scratches the back of his neck, looking down with pink high on his cheeks, and David thinks about how he’s probably made Patrick uncomfortable and how this is a workplace technically and he shouldn’t want to smile this much. “For the bread, I mean,” he adds quickly, letting out a nervous laugh and looking away. “I meant for the baked goods?”

“Or you could just take home my bakes,” Patrick says and he doesn’t look as uncomfortable anymore, which makes David feel comfortable exhaling.

“You know,” David says, clutching the tupperware to his chest, “I think I will.”

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, the hosts have to help the bakers. Once he had to hold up a tower of cream puffs because Gwen forgot the sugar work to hold it together and when his parents came over to judge her showstopper, they told him to remove his hands and the whole thing collapsed on itself. David isn’t always good at helping, but usually he is, better than Alexis anyway, who doesn’t seem to do anything but send vague words of encouragement and wring her hands when she’s stressed for them, which sometimes helps but usually doesn’t.

Today the sky is so dark it looks almost like dusk and any minute now, it’ll open up and dump rain on them. They’re doing confessionals inside the tent and he walks past Patrick, looking at his phone.

“Never wished for rain more than I have today,” Patrick is saying to the camera and then starts talking about how his cookies are going to lose their crunch and then he’s out of earshot and David is thinking about how Patrick looked when he arrived on set that morning, skin slick with rain. He isn’t sure where that thought came from and he shoves it to the back of his brain, locking it into a box labeled _Unexplainable things you definitely shouldn’t explore_.

“Did you know Ted lived in Tahiti for like, this vet thing, which means he’s _really_ good at baking in the humidity.” David looks up and realizes Alexis is talking to him.

“Okay, first of all? Ted was in the Galapagos,” he says and Alexis flaps her wrist at him, annoyed. “And second, I don’t care.”

She pouts at him. “David! You can’t say that about the bakers! They try _so_ hard, with their little rolling pins and aprons and chef’s hats.”

“How have you worked on this show for three years and not noticed that they don’t wear hats,” he says, tilting his head to the side.

“I meant metaphorically,” she says like it’s obvious, as if it makes any sense.

“What would a metaphorical hat look like?” he asks, pretending to think about it and delighting in the face Alexis pulls.

“Don’t be such a dick, David.”

He widens his eyes, looking around the room and pretending to look worried. “Careful, the cameras might catch that.”

“Ugh, _David._ ” Alexis sends him another glare before stalking off and plopping herself in her chair in the corner, leaving David feeling satisfied. Except then he looks up from his phone and right at Patrick, who’s standing across the tent watching him.

Patrick smiles and David has to stop himself from turning around to see if he’s looking at someone else. He isn’t, so David lets himself smile back before going to rile up Alexis more.

One of the assistant directors taps him and Alexis and they’re shuffled to the front of the tent to where his mother and father are standing, looking far too devious for their own good.

“Any advice for the bakers for the technical?” Alexis asks and she’s smirking too, which only makes the energy in the room skyrocket, all wringing hands and knit brows.

“Patience is your comrade in arms,” Moira says, looking each of the bakers in the eye.

“Mmh, okay, _super_ helpful,” says Alexis, shooing them both away with her hands.

Their dad fixes her with a look. “Alexis, stop shooing.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t need to shoo if you two didn’t take your sweet time leaving the tent,” she shoots back and the bakers let out shaky laughs.

“I wish you all the good fortune bakers!” their mother says over her shoulder.

“Great, now that they’re gone,” Alexis says, clapping her hands together, “You can get started on…” She pauses, looking at David pointedly who just mouths _What_? back.

“Oh…Your arlettes,” he finishes finally, ignoring Alexis’s annoyed look.

David thinks arlettes sound like a fake name, but his mother chose them for biscuit week because she thinks the bakers will _at least_ recognize the name, which David and his father assure her, they won’t. They’re supposed to end up thin and crunchy, except there’s a clap of thunder and it still won’t rain and David doesn’t think anyone’s cookies are going to come out thin and crunchy, which is disappointing because he stole a few of the ones his mother made as an example and he wouldn’t mind a few more.

The tent is filled with more anxious energy than usual, like the lightning outside is making everyone thrum with nerves. Twyla drops her mixing bowl on the ground and everyone jumps a foot in the air. Alexis even lets out a screech, which makes Ted drop his rubber spatula, which bounces uselessly across the floor.

He and Alexis do their loop of the room and Alexis hugs every baker from behind, telling them they’re going to do great even with the humidity. David thinks his eyes are going to roll into the back of his head, but it seems to calm them all and he doesn’t even say anything when Alexis’s hug with Ted lasts a beat too long.

“Twyla, how _are_ you?” she asks when they reach Twyla’s bench.

“Oh, I’m good!” Twyla says, bright and unbothered despite the fact that she’s had to remake her dough since dropping it on the floor. “I had to start over, but Patrick was really helpful.”

Behind her, Patrick smiles fondly as he rolls out his dough.

“He was telling me maybe feeding the judges dough that was on the floor wasn’t the best idea. I didn’t really get why, since it’s going in the oven and I _think_ I brushed all the dirt off…” She trails off, shrugging as she creams her butter.

David squints at the camera but doesn’t say anything.

“Great, well, I can’t wait to taste your not-floor cookies,” Alexis says. “I’m sure they’ll be _super_ yummy.”

Twyla beams at her. “Thanks, Alexis.”

“Have you made arlettes before?” asks David, trying to ignore the way Patrick’s muscles are moving as he rolls out his dough behind Twyla.

“You know, I haven’t,” replies Twyla. “When I bake at the cafe, we mostly stick with your usual shortbread and bacon chocolate chip cookies.”

“Mmh, _yum.”_ Alexis sounds like she finds the idea of bacon chocolate chip cookies anything but appetizing.

“Well, good luck,” says David, reaching out a hand to pat her on her shoulder stiffly.

They spend the rest of the hour jumping from station to station and pretending like they aren’t stressing out the bakers more by hovering.

It isn’t until the last five minutes that things seem to go badly. David is passing by Patrick’s station and he swears he isn’t going to stop and talk to him. However, the cameraman taps him on the shoulder and motions for him to stop, so David does, clenching a fist and inhaling before turning to face him.

Patrick is sitting on the floor, covered in the cinnamon sugar from the dough—how it got in his hair, David has no idea—and frantically trying to flip his cookies so they can cook on both sides as they're meant to.

He goes to kneel beside him. “Can I help?”

Patrick jumps, almost dropping one of the cookies. He looks up with a harried expression, eyes wide. “Can you?” he asks. “Are you allowed?”

“Yeah, yeah, I can,” he says and Patrick reaches for a spatula to hand to him. “What do I do?”

“Just flip each of the cookies,” Patrick says, resuming his work. “But carefully, they’re delicate.”

“I can do that,” David says, but he feels like he can’t. He won’t let Patrick know that because Patrick doesn’t need that right now, he just needs David to flip impossibly thin cookies, so that’s what David does.

They move through the batch quickly and Patrick pushes them into the oven, setting a timer and looking around in search of a clock. “How much—“ he starts to ask.

“You have six minutes,” David replies and he lets himself reach out to put a hand on Patrick’s shoulder, tense under his touch before his hand darts back, falling back to his side lamely. Patrick doesn’t look fazed by it, too focused on his cookies in the oven and David is relieved, because he thinks if Patrick noticed, if Patrick had any inkling of how it feels like David’s fingers twitch at his sides any time he’s near, wanting to reach out and touch him, then David thinks he would probably stick his head in the oven. He’s maybe glad Patrick is straight because he doesn’t seem the type to assume every not straight guy wants to hit on him so Patrick is probably blissfully unaware that David’s chest feels like hot, sticky syrup every time he sees him.

“Okay, six minutes, okay,” says Patrick, nodding.

“Plenty of time.” It’s not entirely true, but if he helps him lift the cookies onto the display they might make it.

Patrick is pacing back and forth, ducking his head to look through the oven window every now and then.

“One minute, bakers!” Alexis says at the front of the room. “So get your little buns out of the oven and onto the gingham altar!”

“Cookies, Alexis, they’re making cookies,” he calls out and Patrick lets out a snort behind him.

“It’s an expression, David.”

“Not in this context!”

Alexis groans at him and he can tell she wants to snap back, but she doesn’t because Jocelyn has dropped a cookie and she has to step in and help. When he turns back around, Patrick is taking his cookies out of the oven and the tray is shaking.

“Thirty seconds!” Alexis calls, then immediately five seconds later, goes, “Twenty-five seconds!”

“Alexis? Not helping.” The spatula David is holding pauses in mid-air as he looks up to fix Alexis with what is hopefully a withering look.

“David?” Patrick is looking at him, then moving his eyes pointedly to the half-filled platter. David shakes his head and slides a cookie onto it.

“I’m just updating them on time, David.”

“Why don’t you just hit yourself with a spatula.”

“ _Rude_.” Alexis glares at him before glancing at her watch. “Oh, also, time’s up!”

It seems like everyone has at least managed to get their cookies onto the plates at the ends of their counters and he walks to the front of the room, trailing behind Patrick.

“They’re not going to be crunchy enough,” says Patrick as he puts the plate down on the table at the front of the tent, frowning with his hands on his hips.

“I think they’ll be delicious,” David says. “And if they’re not, well, they’re very pretty.”

Patrick chuckles before joining the other bakers on their stools. Again, David thinks it’s lucky Patrick is straight and whatever is happening with the butterflies in his stomach is not mutual because if it was, then David would be tempted to act on it and he doesn’t think he could take that. Patrick would probably kind and polite and apologetic and he’d probably give David a hug after telling him he really appreciates it but he’s straight and feels that their positions as baker and host would really just complicate things further; then David would have to quit his job and he _likes_ his job, even if it means hanging out with Alexis all day.

It turns out not one of the batches comes out crunchy and his dad has to take Ted’s especially soft cookie away from his mother as she pulls it apart, commenting for much too long about its lack of a crisp and calling him Timothy when he raises his hand to claim his bake. Ted goes bright red and Alexis looks furious in the background.

 

* * *

 

David used to like meringue but he thinks he might be happy to never eat or see a meringue ever again.

The showstopper for dessert week instructs the bakers to use three different types, which David finds excessive, but his mother loves meringue, which David thinks is why his dad chose it months ago when they were planning the season. There was once a point in his life where he didn’t know there was a difference between meringues except now he’s watching Ray beat his eggs and thinking about how his Swiss meringue is going to collapse because his heat is too high.

He can see his dad frowning in concern at Ray’s meringues and ducks away, unwilling to watch Ray stumble through what is going to be the most anxiety-inducing interview of the episode.

Everyone says his mother is the one to be afraid of and he thinks they have a point, with her sharp looks and incomprehensible patterns of speech so that bakers never know if she’s praising them or disgusted by their bake. But his dad has a tendency to forget that his face makes expressions that send people into panics and David has little desire to stick around for it.

He finds himself at Patrick’s bench, leaning on the counter and putting his chin in his hands. He’s acutely aware of the camera just behind his shoulder.

“So…how’s it going over here?” Patrick barely looks up at the sound of David’s voice, his eyes fixed on the egg whites he’s beating by hand. David absolutely has not noticed the sheen of sweat across his forehead or the way his forearm is moving, whipping the whisk back and forth in quick circles, or the way his tongue is sticking out of his mouth just slightly, deep in concentration.

“This is my third French meringue,” says Patrick, lifting the whisk to see if the eggs have peaked yet. They haven’t and he keeps whisking. “So it’s going _great_.”

“I think everyone’s on their third French meringue,” David says, which is a blatant lie, French meringues are the easiest of the three to make, but Patrick doesn’t look like he needs any more stress added to his showstopper.

Patrick looks up at him this time, his arm slowing in its movements. “Thanks.” He keeps looking at David and it’s almost affectionate, grateful. David resists the urge to wriggle under his gaze, trying not to be taken aback by the way Patrick is eying him and desperately shoving any thoughts of his principles to the front of his mind; principles like how he doesn’t sleep with bakers because they can only ever be temporary fixtures in his life and David doesn’t mind temporary, but he minds running into temporary every day at work. But Patrick is looking back at his bowl and David remembers there’s a camera on them, so he takes Patrick’s fond looks and categorizes them as unexplainable and most likely meaningless in his mind.

If he doesn’t, he thinks he might shatter his carefully set rules, just take a sledgehammer to them and smash them to pieces because he thinks he doesn’t want Patrick to be a temporary fixture.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Patrick says, then looks at the camera, eyes wide.

“It’s okay, they can cut it,” David says quickly, coming around the counter to stand behind and peek into his mixing bowl. Patrick has come close to over-beating his eggs but he looks more concerned that he swore on camera. “Can I help?”

“No, it’s ruined,” Patrick says, which David thinks is dramatic because he’s seen enough meringues to know that it really isn’t, so he tells Patrick so and picks the whisk back up, handing it to Patrick so he can keep going. Patrick sends him another one of those slow, grateful smiles and David ignores how his stomach swoops in response. “It’s too firm.”

“No, it isn’t.” He grabs Patrick’s wrist before he can think better of it and lifts it so the whisk lifts too, taking the egg whites with it.

Patrick doesn’t even blink, allowing David to guide his hands slowly around the bowl as he tests the texture. “It’s definitely too firm,” Patrick says again and David lets go of his wrist, taking a step back. _Cameras_ , he reminds himself.

“I think it’ll be delicious,” David tries.

“It’s definitely at least _semi_ -firm,” Patrick says and David tears his eyes away from the meringue in the bowl to look at Patrick, who looks right back. Patrick doesn’t look so nervous anymore. Instead, he’s looking at David like he has every idea of what he’s just said.

“Okay, well as long as it doesn’t get hard.” The words fall off his tongue before he can stop them and a blush crawls all the way up to his neck to his cheeks and he feels hot, so hot in this stupid hot tent. He tells himself he’s embarrassed, that it’s embarrassing what he just said to Patrick and tries to ignore the heat pooling in his stomach at Patrick’s words. “And that’s something, that’s what I just said to you.”

Patrick tilts his head to the side and he’s not smiling but his eyes are crinkled at the edges and they’re bright and David wonders, just for a second, if things are more mutual than he thought.

But then Alexis is shouting that they have an hour left and David nearly jumps out of his skin, feeling skittish. Patrick coughs and turns back to his bake, muttering something under his breath about being behind schedule.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Alexis says, wriggling in her chair as she twists to face their parents. Each of the showstoppers of the day is laid out on the table before them as their parents share their thoughts on the day in front of the cameras. David picks at Twyla’s pavlova with his fork as Alexis laces her fingers together and rests her elbows on the table. “Who’s going home this week?”

“Darling, you know we cannot divulge that information,” says his mother.

“Why don’t we start with who has done well this week?” Johnny pulls Jocelyn’s bake closer and starts talking about how her flavor profile was daring but her textures were good, to which Moira says that he can just say he doesn’t enjoy cherry soda flavored pavlova. David wants badly to tune out the rest of their discussion but he can’t, he has to interact and ask questions and be _likable_. He doesn’t have the energy to be likable and as he tastes each of the pavlovas he wonders how he ended up with this job, even if it does mean he gets to eat baked goods for most of the day.

“It is a shame that Peter’s pavlova was overbeaten,” his mother is commenting, using her fork to crack Patrick’s meringue.

“Yes, _Patrick’s_ bake was a little too crunchy,” their father says and Moira doesn’t even blink.

“His tiramisu in the technical had a hint too much creme, I believe,” she continues and David doesn’t say anything. He sits there and he listens to his parents list off the strengths and weaknesses of each baker, and he thinks about Patrick leaving the show and how he shouldn’t care but does. They’re weighing sending Gwen or Patrick home and David can feel his mind spinning out of control, his anxiety poking at the little disconcerted part of his brain that’s imagining Patrick getting sent home. He doesn’t like how uncomfortable he feels, so he asks his parents who they’re thinking for star baker and tries not to remind them of the time Gwen burnt her focaccia two weeks ago but does anyway.

His parents take the bait and he retreats into himself again, thinking not of the curve of Patrick’s smirk when he said semi-firm, but of the delicate look in his eye when he said, “Thanks”; of the way his voice dropped an octave as he said it and his mouth tightened as his gaze flickered downward before meeting David’s eyes again, looking at David so tenderly you would have thought he had done more than the bare minimum of comfort.

He thinks about how he wants people to look at him like that more often, except, no that isn’t true; he wants Patrick to look at him like that more often. He wants Patrick to look at him like that all the time, but maybe if he did David would never leave his side. Patrick wouldn’t like that, not just because people don’t like it when David clings to them but because he’s not exaggerating; he thinks he wants to never leave Patrick’s side and that’s not _healthy_ , that’s clingy and codependent, his therapist would say, and besides, Patrick will be sent home at some point in the next few weeks. Maybe this week. Maybe he’ll be sent home this week, in less than an hour, and then David won’t ever see him again and he’s never wanted to never see someone again less.

When his mother finally tells him Gwen will be sent home that week, David’s nerves still feel frayed around the edges.

And after, the bakers are lined up before them and David announces that Ted is star baker that week and Alexis tells them that Gwen is going home. Everyone says goodbye and the camera crew takes the bakers outside for the last confessional of the day, but Patrick lingers, sidling up to David with his hands in his pockets and David thinks about that pit in his stomach that remained stubbornly there until his parents told them Gwen would be eliminated. Patrick opens his mouth, David pulls out his phone, looks down at it and walks promptly in the other direction. He doesn’t turn around.

He misses the way Patrick’s mouth snaps shut, the way he blinks once, then twice, before looking around and walking outside, shoulders hunched.

Later, he’s walking to his car when Alexis falls into step beside him. “You’ll never guess what Mom and Dad said to me,” she says. “They said I’m _favoring_ Ted. Which is just like, funny because I flirted with Mutt all the time before he got sent home and Twyla’s fun too.”

David sends her a long look.

 _“What_?” she says. “There’s only six of them left, it’s not like I’m favoring anyone. Besides, Mom calls him _Todd._ I just think Ted’s a good baker…”

Alexis’s voice gets softer toward the end of her sentence and he glances at her. She’s looking down at her hands, twisting her fingers and biting her lip. Alexis was right. She did flirt with Mutt and she’s friends with Twyla now. She’s always flirted with contestants. At first, the producers told her to tone it down, but then they realized that people enjoyed it, liked that Alexis made people feel special, so they let her do what she wants now.

But Alexis has gone quiet, still looking down as she walks with him. “Besides,” she says, and he can hear her inhale deeply. “You’re friends with Patrick, so like, I don’t get what the big deal is or whatever.”

“I’m not _friends_ with Patrick.” The words come out before he can stop them, more instinct than anything. He’s feeling defensive suddenly, like if he doesn’t say anything Alexis is going to figure out that sometimes David looks at Patrick a little too long or sometimes he lets himself be a little more tactile in the way he offers help.

Alexis is looking at him weird. “What do you mean, _yes_ you are.”

“But it’s not like you and Ted.”

“ _Ugh,_ there is no ‘me and Ted,’ David,” she says, flicking her wrist.

“Mom and Dad _literally_ took you aside and told you to stop favoring him,” David says because this is safe, making fun of Alexis is safe because if he’s making fun of Alexis, they’re not talking about Patrick.

“Okay, but you totally favor Patrick.”

Apparently not.

“I do _not_.”

“Oh my god, David, yes, you do! You think I didn’t notice how you _always_ take the leftovers of his bakes instead of anyone else’s?”

“He’s a good baker!” David hates that his voice hitches.

“‘He’s a good baker’?” Alexis repeats. “You can just _say_ that you’re friends, the world won’t explode if you make a friend other than Stevie.”

David doesn’t say anything and looks pointedly ahead, wishing his car was parked closer.

“Oh my god,” Alexis says suddenly.

He turns to face her but she isn’t walking beside him anymore. Instead, she’s a few paces back, mouth open as she looks at him. “What?” he asks.

“You like Patrick!” she says, bringing her hands to her face.

“No, I really don’t.” David turns on his heel and keeps walking. He can hear Alexis catching up beside him.

“You totally do, you have a little crush on his little button face!” Alexis crows. “You’re such a little hypocrite, David! Telling me I shouldn’t favor Ted while you’re like, carrying a torch for Patrick.”

David spins around, wagging a finger in her face, which Alexis pulls a face at. “First of all? Could you _be_ any more loud right now?”

“Aww, you’re such a little sweetie, you don’t want people knowing!” Alexis simpers.

“I don’t want people knowing because it isn’t true.” This time he manages to make his voice come out at least at a normal volume. “ _I don’t have a crush on Patrick_. We’re not twelve.”

Alexis’s eyes light up. “Do you _love_ him? Do you like _really_ really love him?”

“Stab yourself with a fork.” He starts walking again, pressing the button on his keys to unlock his car, which is thankfully, blessedly, ten feet away.

“Rude, David.” Alexis leans against his car, looking gleeful. “This is _so_ cute for you. Are you going to like, comfort him when he gets sent home?”

“Who says he’s getting sent home?” David asks quickly, which was the wrong thing to say.

“It’s so sweet how you don’t want him to lose!”

“ _Alexis_ , if you don’t stop talking and step back, I’m slamming the door on your fingers.” He yanks the door to his car open and throws himself onto the driver’s seat. Alexis steps back, still looking pleased with herself, and he slams the door shut, glaring at her through the window.

“Is he going to bake a cake for your wedding?” Alexis calls after him.

He flips her off and drives away.

 

* * *

 

Patrick is confused. David can tell. He’s more flustered than usual, shaking a little when they arrive at his bench the first morning of cake week. He tells them he’s making lemon and thyme drizzle cakes for the signature that day and talks about the thyme he has on his window sill and David’s mother smells it and not once does Patrick’s gaze meet David’s. Sometimes David feels like he might be trying, but every time he looks at Patrick, he isn’t looking back at him so he’s given up on catching his eye and sullenly ducks behind the camera so no one sees him looking like a petulant child, especially Patrick.

He spends the rest of the signature at the front of the room, keeping an eye on the clock and making sporadic announcements as Alexis pops between the stations and sends him weird looks. His face looks like he’s swallowed something sour and slimy and he knows it. One of the producers tells him to brighten up and he’s professional, so he nods then glares at their back.

He’s tired by the time they get to the technical and feeling his own resolve wearing thin, so thin it’s close to vanishing but if it does he’s going to end up talking to Patrick again and if that happens, he’s going to have to sit there and feel warmth in his chest and know that even though Patrick put it there, he’s not doing it on purpose or anything.

When they film the showstopper, Patrick refuses to tell Alexis, David, and the cameras what his will end up looking like, just giving them a vague idea so they know if his final product ends up the way it’s supposed to. His parents and Alexis move on to the next baker but he idles, thinking about how he should really learn to hate the way it feels to be around Patrick. His resolve has evaporated into nothingness and it leaves him wondering why he ever wanted to stay away from Patrick in the first place. It’s so infuriatingly inconvenient to want to spend time with him; to see him grin and know that he was the one that put it there, that he was the one who tugged the edges of his mouth upward, drew the laugh from his lips.

“You’re not even going to tell me what it is?” David leans against the counter behind Patrick’s, watching as he makes his fondant. Patrick glances up, an almost infinitesimal hint of hesitation flickering across his face before he looks back down.

“Nope.” Patrick doesn’t look at him as he pops the P, crouching to the ground so he can check on his sponges in the oven. “I didn’t even tell your parents.”

“How did my mom take that?”

Patrick looks up at him from the floor with a grin. “Oh, quite well,” he says. If he’s feeling thrown by David suddenly talking to him, he doesn’t let on.

“Mmh, well, good luck not getting kicked out of the tent,” David says and he feels a rush of warmth that he can hear Patrick’s low chuckle as he walks away, and something like relief floods him knowing that normalcy has settled back around them.

Twyla is making a replica of the cafe she works at and she’s even made little menus, though they look disproportionate to the size of the miniature cafe, which he points out curiously before he realizes that it might stress her out.

“No, the menus are just that big,” Twyla says simply and he’s glad he hasn’t made her overthink her choices, glancing at the camera and making a face.

“David struggles with having a calm vibe,” Alexis says to the camera.

“And Alexis struggles with long division.”

“ _David_!” He has to dart away from her because Alexis has reached into Twyla’s bag of flour and thrown a handful at him. It lands in his hair and his hand flies to it, trying to brush it away without disheveling it. “You promised not to mention math!”

“It’s not my fault—“ He cuts off because she’s reaching for more flour. “—you failed seventh-grade math!”

“Oh my god, you’re _dead_ , I’m making them edit that out,” she snaps, throwing more flour at him, but he dodges it this time and it falls to the floor.

“Too bad you don’t have control over the editors,” he says over his shoulder as he walks away, the cameras following. Alexis huffs behind him but she doesn’t try to throw any more ingredients at him.

He ends up back at Patrick’s bench because all the cakes are in the oven and it’s always a slow moment for filming when things are baking. Patrick is sitting on the counter, swinging his legs as he keeps a close eye on his timer, when David approaches. There’s still a flare of something behind his eyes, like he can’t quite put his finger on where they stand, which strikes at something deep inside David. Patrick is just trying to be friends with him, except David doesn’t think he’d be able to manage to be friends with him. Patrick is just trying to be friends and David is _ruining_ it with his soft and gooey feelings, which he feels very unaccustomed to.

“You’re looking bored,” David says, glancing around the rest of the quiet tent.

“Just waiting for the fondant to settle and the cakes to get out of the oven.” Patrick shrugs and looks at his timer again.

“Feel like telling us what your cake is?”

“Still no.”

“Patience just like, isn’t my strong suit.”

“That is shocking information.” Patrick leans down, resting his chin in his hands and looking at David like he can’t quite figure him out, except it’s not in the way people usually look at David. It’s like he can't quite believe he exists and is standing right in front of him. Sometimes Patrick looks at him like this and it gives David pause.

It unsettles David, to be looked at so intently and he wonders if Patrick looks like this at everyone. If he did, how could anyone stand it? David feels himself falling apart at the seams every time Patrick lays his eyes on him, like every careful stitch he’s sewn around himself is slowly coming undone, and he’s letting Patrick pull them loose, slow and gentle.

“Hey.” Patrick hops off the counter, crowding into David’s space. It makes his breath stick in his throat and he thinks his lungs have emptied out completely as Patrick raises his hand to David’s hair, brushing it lightly. “You still have flour in your hair.”

David sucks in a shaky breath and wishes Patrick weren’t so close because there isn’t any way that he didn’t hear that inhale. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Patrick sends him a smile, stepping back out of his space and leaving David’s brain fuzzy.

Patrick looks utterly unaffected by it all, which David can’t understand, but then the timer behind him trills and he jumps violently, knocking over one of the wooden spoons sticking off the counter. He swears under his breath, grabbing an oven mitt and opening the oven.

David has to force himself to walk away because Alexis is calling him over to make their hour announcement and he thinks if he stays by Patrick any longer he might dissolve into the floor.

Later, they approach Patrick’s bench, which has his final product placed on the end. He’s created some sort of Laguna Beach look-alike scene, with miniature fondant bungalows along the shore. It isn’t until his mother lets out a little gasp that he takes note of Patrick’s loopy handwriting stretched out across the frosting ocean. David lets his jaw drop and Alexis even lets out a small squeal.

His mother's face is curiously impassive, especially considering Patrick’s bake is specially curated for her.

Because there, spelled out in neat piped frosting, are the words _Sunrise Bay_ across Patrick’s showstopper.

David can see his father trying not to smile as his mother reaches for the knife, sinking it into the corner of the cake. They lift their forks and David’s breath actually catches in his throat as they chew slowly. Patrick looks remarkably calm, but David can see the way he has one hand in a fist behind the counter, and his lower lip is caught between his teeth.

“Well,” his mother says. “Your perhaps perilous decision has clearly worked in your favor, Patrick.”

The look on Patrick’s face when she uses his name is worth it for the several long seconds of tension.

“Absolutely delicious,” his father says, setting down his fork. Patrick beams at him.

“A risky sycophantic move,” Moira says, “But one we must reward. Well done, Pat.”

His dad actually puts his hand out for Patrick to shake and Patrick blinks twice, still in shock. He grasps Johnny’s hand, and David has to put his hand over his mouth.

Patrick gets star baker that week and David can’t help but shake his fists in the air when he announces it, pulling his lips between his teeth so he doesn’t look feral on camera.

 

* * *

 

He’s looking over the call sheet for the day in one of the folding chairs outside the tent and trying to tune out the way that Alexis and Ted are laughing ten feet away, gritting his teeth and pretending he’s angry because Alexis is being _unprofessional_ and taking _risks_. Like it’s not because he wishes he could be like her, let everything roll off his back, flirt with contestants because it’s fun and harmless, even if flirting with Patrick doesn’t feel harmless. It feels intentional and purposeful and like it could go somewhere except Patrick is straight, probably.

“Hey.”

David’s head snaps up from the call sheet. Patrick is sitting in the chair next to him, looking friendly and excited to see him and decidedly _straight_ , David has to remind himself.

“Hi.” He wishes he could make saying hello sound casual but he can’t even manage that.

“How’s it going?” Patrick asks and it doesn’t sound like he’s asking to be polite; he genuinely wants to know how David’s day is going and David’s stomach swoops dangerously.

He shrugs, aiming for nonchalance but probably landing at jerky and awkward. Patrick is looking at him patiently, like he’s expecting David to say something except David’s brain is curiously blank because Patrick’s eyes are golden brown in the sunlight and when did he start noticing the color of people’s _eyes?_ He wants to throw up.

“I’m so good, Patrick, how are you?” Patrick says and David’s brain kicks into action. Banter he can do.

“You’re sitting in Alexis’s chair,” David points out, ignoring him.

Patrick raises his brow. “I know. It has her name on it.”

“You don’t know though,” David says because he doesn’t _get_ it. “Alexis doesn’t like when people sit in her chair. I sat in it once because my mom was in mine and she _physically_ took me out of it.”

“Isn’t Alexis like half your size? How could she have—” Patrick starts, looking like he’s going to laugh.

“Doesn’t matter.” David waves a hand, cutting him off.

“I’m not that worried,” Patrick says and David looks at him like he’s grown a second head.

“You _should_ be.”

“I think Alexis is preoccupied.” Patrick juts his head toward the tent. Alexis is twirling a lock of hair between her fingers and Ted is watching the movement like it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen, which it might be.

David pulls a face and has to bite back the disgusted noise at the back of his throat. Patrick turns back to him, one side of his mouth curving upward. “You don’t approve?”

David fixes him with a look and Patrick looks suitably admonished.

“Why not?” His words are casual but David can see him tapping his finger against his thigh. He does that when he’s waiting for his bake to come out of the oven, in the last five minutes, like he’s waiting for everything to either come out perfect or be ruined completely. Not that David has noticed.

“It’s not…” David gesticulates, like that helps explain anything. “She’s being… _Alexis_.”

“Shocking. I’m shocked.”

“No, you don’t get it,” David says, a tinge of impatience coming into his voice, and Patrick’s playful expression fades into something more serious. He’s listening to David so intently, so focused on him that David has to look away to concentrate. “She always does this. Not with contestants. But with guys. She doesn’t think about anything but them and her. And they um? Let her. They let her do that and I just…She shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because this is her _job_ ,” David says and maybe he’s taking this too far, and he absolutely should not be talking about this with _Patrick_ , who’s a contestant and who’s looking at him too carefully for comfort.

“Maybe Ted isn’t _letting_ her do anything,” Patrick says slowly, tentatively. “Maybe she likes him.”

David scoffs. “Alexis hasn’t _liked_ a guy since we were in high school.”

He’s being mean. He can feel it. But Alexis lets out another peal of laughter and he wants to be more mean because it isn’t fair, he wants to be vindictive because Alexis is just standing there, flirting with Ted like it’s nothing, like it’s normal and she can do that, like she does it all the time, like it’s okay for them to flirt with contestants and oh.

One of David’s therapists told him once that sometimes he externalizes his emotions over something he doesn’t want to think about so he doesn’t have to think about it, so he can pretend it’s not about him, pretend he’s fine and everything is fine. That therapist also put him on antidepressants that killed his appetite so he dropped her and found a new one.

Looking at Alexis, then looking back to Patrick, who’s watching him so so carefully, like if he says too much David will spook, he thinks maybe Dr. Peterson was right.

“Maybe she likes him now,” is all Patrick says and suddenly Alexis’s laugh isn’t so loud, isn’t so grating, as he looks at Patrick, biting the inside of his cheek.

“Maybe,” David says and he wonders if he’s imagining the way Patrick lets his gaze slip just for a moment, just noticeable enough that David can see he’s looking at his lips, and he wonders if he’s imagining the way Patrick’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard, the way Patrick is looking at him softer than anyone has ever looked at him. He opens his mouth, letting his lips part but whatever he wants to say sticks in his throat.

Patrick waits, patient and kind, and David feels his stomach swoop again. He feels like he might burst out of his skin, like he needs something to ground him because his chest has a floaty, achy feeling to it when he looks at Patrick. He feels like he wants to scream a little bit, not in a frustrated way, but like if he doesn’t scream, if he doesn’t let go of some of this tension he’s going to do something monumentally stupid like take Patrick’s face in his hands and kiss him right there on the spot.

“David—“ Patrick starts and he’s so relieved to hear his name from Patrick’s lips, like maybe Patrick will be the first to acknowledge this space between them so he won’t have to and he can’t wait to hear what Patrick will say next except he’s also dreading it because it’s probably something like, “David you’re a terrible person and you should want your sister to be happy and also I’m straight and it makes me uncomfortable that you flirt with me even if sometimes I flirt back.”

Instead, two arms wrap around him from behind and he jumps a foot in the air.

“ _What the fuck, Stevie?_ ” David twists around in his chair, glaring at Stevie.

“Hello to you too,” she says. “I had such a good vacation, thank you for asking. How is your day going, David?”

“Can you like? Go back on vacation?” he asks and Stevie sends him a fake pout before outstretching her arms. He stands and wraps his arms tightly around her because she may have almost sent him to the hospital with a heart attack but it’s been two weeks since he’s seen her and he’s never before felt her absence more than he has this week. He feels a rush of guilt that he forgot she was visiting set that day.

“As if you could survive without me,” Stevie says, slapping his arm.

David lets out a high-pitched, dubious sound that Stevie glares at him for before her eyes land on something just behind David’s shoulder.

“Hi, I’m Stevie,” she says, sidestepping David and putting her hand out for Patrick to shake.

“Patrick,” Patrick says and he takes her hand. His eyes are darting between David and Stevie and it makes David shift his weight from foot to foot. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“All lies,” Stevie says quickly.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Patrick says, grinning. “I know David.”

“Such a compulsive liar,” Stevie says, rolling her eyes.

“Okay. This? I hate,” David says, grimacing.

“What?” Patrick is looking at him and his face says innocence but his eyes are playful and bright and David has never liked someone teasing him this much.

“It’s very unbalanced. You two can’t be friends.”

“You can’t tell me who I can be friends with,” Stevie says, pretending to be offended as she crosses her arms.

“I feel like now I want to be friends with you more,” says Patrick and David really should hate it more that they’re ganging up on him.

“Me too,” says Stevie and they grin at each other as David scowls.

Patrick looks like he’s going to say something more but one of the PAs is calling all the bakers back to the tent for the signature, so instead he just says, “Well, it was nice meeting you.”

“You too,” Stevie says before turning to face David pointedly.  “Really excited to have a new best friend.”

“Okay, unnecessary,” David says, waving a hand at her.

She smirks back. “Maybe Patrick will actually bake for me.”

“I don’t bake for you because I don’t know how!”

“ _Exactly_.”

“Maybe Patrick just wants to get back to the competition,” Patrick says, grinning widely. Stevie snorts.

“I can’t believe you haven’t been fired for distracting the bakers, David.”

“ _You’re_ distracting him! I did nothing.”

“I don’t know, David, you’re pretty distracting,” Patrick says and David doesn’t miss the look of glee on Stevie’s face.

His mouth sort of hangs open, waiting for his brain to come up with a retort, but then Patrick is just touching him on the arm and jogging back into the tent.

“I like this,” Stevie says and he glares at her.

“Like what?”

“This is good for you.”

 _“What_ is?”

“Patrick,” she says with a shrug, as if it’s obvious, which David is realizing it might be.

“What are you—What do you mean?” he asks, crossing his arms and furrowing his brow.

Stevie’s smirk is back. “He likes you.”

“What? No, he—that’s—he doesn’t. He can’t. He’s a _baker_ and I’m—He doesn’t.” Stevie is raising her eyebrows at him, looking dubious and he can’t tell if that makes him feel like his heart is going to drop out of his chest in a good way or a bad way.

“I didn’t know being a baker meant that he couldn’t like people.”

“It _doesn’t_. It just means that…” He’s not entirely sure what it means but he knows Patrick doesn’t like him, or he _can’t_ like him, because David likes attention too much and surely Patrick has noticed that, and David steals his bakes to take home and Patrick probably doesn’t like that. But then he thinks about how Patrick had looked at him when they were talking about Alexis, how it felt like they weren’t talking about Alexis at all.

“Maybe I’m wrong.” Stevie shrugs, looking at the tent. “But I don’t think I am.”

“Well…” David says, thinking he has a rebuttal but finding none. “Whatever.”

Stevie’s smirk is gone and has softened into something much more thoughtful and gentle. “I think you should go for it.”

“I think you should go back on vacation,” he snaps.

“I mean so do I, but tell that to my boss,” she shoots back and then they’re talking about how her vacation was and her boss and David feels himself relax a little bit, even if Stevie’s words won’t stop turning over in his head.

Stevie sticks around for the signature, claiming that she wants to take home a slice of one of the chocolate tarts the bakers are working on, but David thinks it’s because she hasn’t seen him in two weeks because she seems more smiley than usual; though that could be because he trips over his words when she looks at him as they approach Patrick’s bench.

Alexis covers for him. “What are you making today Patrick?”

“The base of my tart is going to be chocolate, but the filling is going to be like a caramel macchiato with a hint of chocolate.” Patrick is looking at David’s parents, eyes straight ahead and focused as he talks to them, and David wonders if it’s a coincidence, if Patrick just happened to tease him for his coffee order last week then this week has put his coffee order right into his bake. He decides it must be, because Patrick is still and composed, joking with his dad, smiling graciously at his mother as she comments on his ingredients.

But then his parents are moving on to the next station, Alexis is cutting him off, moving around him so he has no choice but to linger at Patrick’s station, and Patrick is saying that he’ll see them later, his gaze meeting David’s. It’s long and deliberate but also a little hesitant; it wasn’t a coincidence and Patrick wants him to know that.

David feels a little bit like he’s been hit by a train, or a truck, or some very large moving object because his breath is caught in his throat and he just manages to say, “Good, um...? Flavor choices.”

“Thanks.” The corner of Patrick’s mouth turns upward as David nods once and walks away, joining his parents and Alexis at the next station.

Later, Stevie meets him as he’s leaving the tent, carrying three tupperwares full of tart slices.

“Did you steal _every_ baker’s tart?” he asks, looking at the tupperwares.

“Why do I come to visit you on set if not to get free baked goods?” she says. She’s looking too smug for his liking and he wishes they weren’t having dinner tonight because he knows what this look means. “I brought you an extra slice of Patrick’s. Noticed you didn’t take any.”

So maybe he dropped by Patrick’s station a little less, took home Gwen’s bake instead of his, but it wasn’t because he could feel Stevie watching him all day or because Patrick curated his bake to David’s tastes. He isn’t going to break his rule, even for maybe-possibly-probably-not straight contestants that memorize his coffee order and make his insides feel like warm syrup.

“Why didn’t you take any of his home, David?” Stevie tilts her head to the side, faking a curious look.

“Maybe I didn’t feel like having any more desserts in my apartment.”

Stevie presses her lips together and if her intention is to not look amused, she utterly fails.

 

* * *

 

Patrick prefaces patisserie week with a confessional where he tells the camera that he’s never made a puff pastry before. David thinks he says it sarcastically, but they reach the end of the day and he comes to the slow realization that it might have been serious.

The technical involves wrapping puff pastry around poached pears and Patrick’s pastry melts right off the pears, which his parents tell him are over-poached. Patrick takes it all in stride, especially considering his savory danishes from the signature were under-seasoned according to Moira. By the time they’re halfway through the showstopper and Patrick burns his phyllo pastry, David knows he’s getting sent home. He can’t decide if he feels disappointed or free. He remembers the way that Patrick says his name and thinks _Maybe_ and he thinks about how if Patrick weren’t a contestant, he could explore that maybe. He also thinks about how friendly Patrick is, how he lets Alexis tap her fingers against his shoulders sometimes, how he laughs with his parents and the other contestants and how Patrick is just being friendly with him because that’s who he is; affable and affectionate around everyone, not just David.

He makes Alexis make the announcement since she made him do Ted’s last week and he ignores the look she sends him, thinking about what might have happened if Patrick had never been a contestant.

Patrick takes it gracefully and thanks his parents so earnestly David wants to stomp his foot and scream. They start filming the goodbyes and Alexis pulls Patrick into a hug, wiggling in his arms and telling him she’s going to miss him so much. Patrick is looking at David over Alexis’s shoulder, amused but clearly touched and David tries not to grin back too widely.

He’s hyper-aware of the cameras in a way he hasn’t been in a long time and all of that only intensifies as Patrick puts his arms out to hug David. He complies, wrapping his arms around Patrick, who’s warm and steady against him. Patrick pats his back twice, friendly and casual, except then he sort of just relaxes against David, his arms sliding across his back, and David lets himself tighten his arms around him and he tucks his chin into the space between Patrick’s neck and his collarbone and again he thinks _Maybe_.

But they’re on camera and Patrick is pulling away, letting out a nervous laugh as he scratches the back of his head, not meeting David’s eyes. It makes David feel hot under his skin, to think that he’s made Patrick flustered—Patrick who never panicked when his bakes went wrong, who’s just happy to have been on the show at all, Patrick who lets everything roll off his back. He wants to say something, something that will make Patrick a little less nervous, but one of the cameramen crosses his line of vision and he takes another step back, muttering that he’s sad to see Patrick go before turning and leaving the tent.

He runs into Patrick in the parking lot after they’ve wrapped for the day and it’s not because David is wandering set looking for Alexis, who he knows has gone home already.

“Hey.” Patrick is walking over to him across the grass, hands shoved in his pockets.

David bites the inside of his cheek because he’s not sure that Patrick would appreciate the real smile David wants to give him, not when he’s just been sent home. “Hi.”

“I’m glad I caught you,” Patrick says and David inhales sharply, glad that it isn’t audible.

“I wanted to—“ Patrick starts, just as David says, “I’m sorry you got sent home.”

Patrick’s lips turn downward but in that way that brings out his dimples and David knows he’s smiling. “Thank you, David,” he says, the words slow and delicate. “I appreciate it.”

David nods, sucking his lips between his teeth and trying not to squirm under Patrick’s gaze. “No…problem.”

“It’s not the end of the world,” Patrick says, the silky softness of his voice fading as he shrugs and glances at the tent. “Some good things came out of it.”

He sends David a long look and it makes him realize that if something is going to happen, he has to do it. “Really?” he asks, stepping toward Patrick.

Patrick doesn’t move, barely even reacts to David entering into his space, except David can swear he hears a hitch in his breath. “Yeah, I’m a much better baker now.” Patrick’s lips turn upward into a smirk and David remembers all the times he’s seen that look on Patrick’s face and realizes that he’s goading him, tugging him along until David gets the picture.

“Are you though?” David asks, tilting his head to the side. He’s never been this close to Patrick and he can see each individual eyelash blinking up at him.

“I did get eliminated, so maybe not as good as I thought.”

David isn’t sure what he’s waiting for. Patrick is inches from him and he’s not imagining the way his eyes are flicking downward every now and then.

“There is some silver lining to getting eliminated though,” Patrick says slowly and David smiles at him.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Like…” Patrick trails off and then suddenly he’s reaching for David’s hand and his heart is crawling up his throat.

And that’s when David closes the space between them, putting a hand on Patrick’s cheek and kissing him lightly, only lingering briefly.

David pulls away, his hand coming to brush his lips, lips that have just kissed Patrick. Patrick looks a little dazed from it, looking down at his feet and it’s so bashful that David wants to do it again. But he doesn’t know what Patrick wants, Patrick is being curiously silent and maybe he hated it, maybe he didn’t like kissing David and David will never get to do it again and he’ll have to live for the rest of his life remembering what it was like to kiss Patrick without being able to ever do it again.

“So in the interest of honesty,” Patrick says and this is when he’s going to tell David they should stay friends, so David braces himself. “I’ve never kissed a guy before.”

Patrick looks up at him just after he says it and he looks so vulnerable, so hesitant that David suddenly realizes that maybe it won’t be bad. Maybe what Patrick is saying isn’t bad. He’s still holding David’s hand.

“And you’re not that into it,” David still says because he can’t help himself, can’t stop the words from falling off his tongue.

Patrick is frowning at him. “What? No.”

Some of the tension leaves David’s body. “Oh.”

“David,” Patrick says and he loves the way his name sounds coming out of Patrick’s mouth when they’re this close together. It’s soft and gravelly and it makes David want no one to ever say his name but Patrick. “I like kissing you.”

As if to prove his point, Patrick puts his hands on David’s hips and pulls him close as David thinks about how nice this is, how he loves kissing Patrick and he thinks that actually, maybe he could never kiss Patrick again and still this would be enough, it would be enough to be kissed like this just twice.

Then Patrick opens his mouth against his and David promptly changes his mind—he doesn’t want to do anything but kiss Patrick for the rest of his life, which should scare him but doesn’t.

“Could we talk?” Patrick asks him when he pulls away.

David nods. “Yeah. Whenever you want. We can talk. Um. Whenever you want.”

Patrick’s face melts into a relieved smile that makes David want to curl around him and never let go except that they only kissed for the first time five minutes ago and he isn’t sure Patrick would appreciate if David were to do that. He’s pretty sure that Patrick would not appreciate it because normal people don’t appreciate it when you cling to them with no intentions of letting go. So he untangles himself and steps out of Patrick’s arms.

“Do you want to get coffee?” Patrick lets out a laugh at the face David pulls. “What, I know you drink coffee.”

“Coffee implies morning and I don’t do mornings.”

Patrick should react badly to that, he should say David is being dramatic, a prima donna, but he doesn’t. Instead, one corner of his mouth lifts into a fond sort of look and it makes David want to filter himself less.

“We could do lunch?” David suggests lunch because lunch is relaxed, lunch is something friends do, even if friends don’t kiss each other like Patrick just kissed him. Lunch isn’t dinner because dinner has _connotations_ and David doesn’t know if he wants to connote things to Patrick just yet, if Patrick wants that.

“Yeah, or we could do dinner?” Patrick looks so adorably and hesitantly inquisitive that David has to swallow his smile. Patrick is okay with those connotations and David thinks he is too.

“Dinner sounds good,” he says and it comes out soft and syrupy and he thought that he was successful in hiding his smile but he clearly isn’t because he can hear his smile in his own words.

“But maybe tomorrow?” Patrick asks and David is taken aback. He had assumed when Patrick said dinner, he meant some later, undetermined date. But that’s not what Patrick meant. Patrick thought they were talking about _tonight_ and the way he’s looking at David, biting his lower lip, tells him that Patrick _wants_ it to be tonight but knows it probably shouldn’t be. “Just so I can think.”

David’s good mood sours. Things don’t end well when people think about starting something with him.

“And because I can see you overthinking, I don’t mean in a bad way,” Patrick says and David drags his gaze back to Patrick. “I just mean…so I can process. In a positive way.”

“Process in a positive way,” David repeats slowly, nodding once. He doesn’t know what it means to process in a positive way.

“David,” Patrick says and he’s taking his hand again; it makes him think about how much he likes it the way Patrick says his name when he’s about to say something important. “It’s just twenty-four hours. What could go wrong in twenty-four hours?”

“Okay, you say that now, but this time tomorrow you’ll probably be taking me on a helicopter and then breaking up with me before it’s even halfway done.”

“That’s startlingly specific.” Patrick’s head is tilted to the side and he’s frowning but also smiling at the same time, like he isn’t entirely sure if David is kidding or not and can’t decide if he should be amused or angry.

“Is it?”

The line between Patrick’s brow softens and he just sort of stands there, looking at David with those earnestly tender eyes, which David doesn’t really _get_ because it’s Patrick; Patrick who has a biting sense of humor; who ribs him for stealing his bakes; teased him within minutes of meeting him; David doesn’t understand how he can be all of those things at once and then look at him like this, still make him feel this way.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Patrick asks, finally dropping his hand back to his side. David can see some of the other bakers and the camera crew exiting the tent and the sun is poking out from behind the trees as it sets, so he takes a step back and nods. Patrick nods too and sticks his hands in his pockets, which is probably a good thing because he can see Alexis not too off and if Patrick’s hands were out of his pockets, David isn’t sure he’d be able to stop himself from lacing their fingers together.

He wishes Patrick had been sent home earlier, if only this could have happened sooner. But, he thinks as he watches Patrick walk back to his car, his phone number safely entered into David's phone, he's okay with how things turned out.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr at [brewerspatrick](brewerspatrick.tumblr.com)


End file.
